With enough goodies being announced for North-East, Mamata Banerjee’s first railway budget for the UPA government appears to have done the ‘please all’ act for the seven sister states.
Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi has welcomed the budget and said that it would “tone up railway’s efficiency and finances.”
“This year’s railway budget has underscored the congress led government’s focus on inclusive growth after it was re-elected by a wider-than-expected margin,” said Gogoi.
Gogoi hailed Banerjee for 6 per cent freight concession for traffic booked from other states for stations in North Eastern states and creation of North-East Rail Development Fund for timely completion of the 10 national projects in the region.
“It will go a long way in boosting the railway network and infrastructure in North-East,” Gogoi said.
The rail budget for 2009-10 proposed to introduced four new trains, viz.; Kamakhya-Puri (weekly), Dibrugarh Town-Chandigarh (weekly), New-Delhi-Guwahati Rajdhani Express (weekly) via Muzaffarpur, Guwahati-New Coochbehar Intercity Express (Daily) and Agartala-Dharmanagar Fast Passenger (Daily), besides extending Ranchi-Alipurduar Express to Guwahati.
The budget also proposed to transform Guwahati railway station, along with 49 others, into a “world class” station.
Also, the Silchar railway station has been included as one of the stations that would be upgraded to a “multi-functional” railway station.
Surveys, said Banerjee, had been completed for connecting Shillong, capital of Meghalaya, and Gangtok, capital of Sikkim. She said that the proposals would be further processed.
Gogoi also praised Banerjee for not increasing passenger or freight charges.
Industry associations of the region too have welcomed the railway budget, though with some caution.
